Issue 102/4 (2021) of the magazine “Gregorianum” is available, quarterly published by the Gregorian University.

ARTICULI

Rolf Kühn, Johanneischer Christus als originäre Lebensoffenbarung

Abstract - If one agrees to understand God as originary reality of life, Christ can be in turn determined as intra-Trinitarian Word in the sense of the First-Living. From a radical phenomenological point of view this signifies the self-engendering of originary life through “Sonship”, which makes the gift of absolute life possible as self-givenness and as “reciprocal interiority”. Therefore also, such Christological Incarnation lies “in the beginning” (John 1,1) and constitutes the condition of possibility for our own life, insofar as the latter is conceivable only through the reciprocity of the son’s life as engendered by God. Taking into account this correspondence, between a phenomenology of Christ and the originary phenomenological truth of our auto-affection in immanent life, allows us to understand the New Testament – especially the Gospel of John – as the self-revelation of immediate life. The purpose of this article is thereby to examine such understanding within the thematic context of relations to ourselves, to the world as well as to others, and to compare this analyses with further affirmations from the New Testament and their corresponding exegesis.

Keywords: Christology – Life – Phenomenology of Life – Receptivity – Auto-affection

 

Claude Lichtert, Jésus, l’hôte accueilli et accueillant

Abstract - The aim of this article is to explore the biblical dynamics of hospitality from Jesus’ attitude as a hospitable host and welcoming guest. To this end, after a broad presentation, we will go through the Gospel passages that portray him and which testify to the hospitality he receives or grants, avoiding conceptualising the concrete action attributable to the host. The evangelical challenge consists first of all in allowing oneself to be welcomed before wanting to welcome. This is what Jesus experiences, and the disciples follow him. In a context of hospitality, Jesus allows himself to be confronted with the fear of the stranger not that he welcomes but that he is, the fear of the difference that he embodies. Arriving without warning, he encourages new journeys and subverts established codes.

Keywords: home, hospitality, pharisee, proximity, symposium

 

Francisco Sánchez Leyva, SDB, Papa Francisco: un pensador que piensa con sentido de totalidad

Abstract - In its two parts, theoretical and linguistic, the article defines Pope Francis: as a thinker who thinks and feels the totality. This thesis is supported by the coincidentia oppositorum guardiniana, by what the author calls the bergoglian Theorem of interdisciplinarity and by the dialectic of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. The thesis, in turn, is illustrated by using some examples of the word “all” in the Pontiff’s textual use. At the end, this thesis states that Pope Francis is a thinker who thinks of the totality with sense of totality because the Kingdom of God is at the center of his thought and feeling. For him, as for the Catholic intellectual of these times, to think and feel the totality from the reality of the Kingdom of God has an existential repercussion of first order: to allow God to be God. 

Keywords: Pope Francis, thinking, totality

 

José Javier Ramos Ordóñez, S.I., Diálogo interreligioso y Centroamérica: reconocer la diversidad religiosa como dinamismo a la fraternidad

Abstract - Interreligious dialogue in Central America does not appear to be, at first glance, a theological priority in the region; it is preferred to privilege intercultural dialogue or ecumenical dialogue. The article tries to point out that a type of interreligious dialogue in Central America is not just possible, but necessary. If dialogue itself is considered as a way of doing theology, following the itinerary of Pope Francis in his encyclical Fratelli Tutti, we will discover the great possibilities that exist in the region to identify new interlocutors, be they the original religions or the “popular religion” (diverse from the popular practice of the Christian faith). Pay our attention on the action of the Holy Spirit who ask for communion, before doing so on the soteriological debate in religions, can help to find new paths in the theology of interreligious dialogue.

Keywords: Interreligious dialogue, America Central, theology of dialogue, Fratelli Tutti, religious pluralism, dynamis, Holy Spirit

 

Evelina Praino, Bloch e Agamben: il tempo della fine e la temporalizzazione della parousía

Abstract - In line with the tradition that, starting from Taubes’ seminars in 1987, identifies in Paul’s letters a messianic message relevant for the study of contemporary political praxis, in this paper I compare Ernst Bloch’s and Giorgio Agamben’s perspectives on the “time of the end”. This comparison has a twofold function: on the one hand, it assesses the developments of their utopian intentionality; on the other hand, it clarifies to what extent their outdatedness can be reconceived by current politics. In these terms, I suggest that their thoughts are to be investigated throughout the concept of parousìa: by deactivating the time of the law, Agamben sees in the “contracted” present a collection of moments from the past, while Bloch claims that the subversion of the worldly order cannot take place but in a present as a hopeful prefiguration of any future possibility. 

Keywords: Time of the end, messianism, inoperativity, hope, parousía

 

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL CHANGES IN THE PANDEMIC

Ramón Lucas Lucas, I limiti etici della scienza e della tecnica

Abstract - «The philosopher doctor becomes godlike». In times of pandemic, such as the one we are experiencing, the icastical Hippocratic locution indicates that the good doctor must possess not only technophilia, but also philanthropy. Medicine deals with complex diseases. This forces the doctor to become a philosopher, confronting the sick person not only with a technical view, but with a holistic perspective. The philosopher’s forma mentis allows him to accompany his scientific knowledge with a humanitarian knowledge that will allow him to know the limits of his actions, to take care of the sick person and accompany him when he cannot heal him with his technique.

The association between the doctor and a god is still maintained today, but the nature of the divinity changes. For Hippocrates, the divine similitude of the physician arose from the natural union between medicine and philosophy. With the passage of time, medicine and philosophy have separated. Medicine has become more objectivising and technical. Nowadays there is more of an inclination towards a relationship between medicine and biotechnology. Salvation from the new deity is to be found in the efficacy of the experimental technical procedures to cure disease. So why does a philosopher intervene? Here lies the reason for this contribution: to recall that holistic dimension which, beyond knowing how to do something, it seeks to know how to be.«Techno-logy» alludes to rationality, to «λόγος». It is here, in rationality, common to the doctor, the biotechnologist, the scientist and the philosopher, that a discourse on the limits of science and technology is based. Practical limits and ethical limits; limits that refer to values. The focus of this contribution is on these ethical limits and values, bearing in mind the admonition of the great scientist Henri Poincaré’s comments on Tolstoy’s understanding of utility: «the useful is only that which can make man better».

Keywords: Ethics and technology, medicine and ethics, ethical judgement, risk assessment, anthropological risk, pandemic, covid-19 vaccines

 

Mariapaola Bergomi, Naturale e Necessario? Riflessioni dal Mondo antico su Salute e Arte medica ai Tempi del Covid19

Abstract - The aim of the present paper is that of presenting some thoughts about the public communication, dichotomies and contradictions that characterize the debate over the pandemic of Covid19, starting from specific suggestions inspired by the ancient world and the reading of ancient texts, with a focus on Plato in particular, on the topics of the impact of diseases on political systems, of the relationship between medicine and philosophy, and between medicine and rhetoric, ending with some considerations over the concept of health as good in a system of values as well. The birth of the Hippocratic medicine and the peculiar reading of the nature of this art in Plato lead us to interesting considerations about the age we are living, and highlight this troublesome present times.

Keywords: disease, medicine, rhetoric, Plato, technē, health, value

 

Terry Walsh, S.I., Il Covid-19 e la crisi dell’autocoscienza filosofica

Abstract - The world pandemic has offered philosophy an opportunity to confront itself – its modes of thinking, self-reflection, and its relation to the world. The pandemic provokes us to question ourselves: what does it mean at this historic moment to be a philosopher, to think about the world, to philosophize in and about it? On one level, the question seems perplexing, for don’t we already know what philosophy is and what it means to philosophize? Kierkegaard’s equally perplexing question lies at the bottom of my own questioning: what does it mean to be a Christian in 19th century Copenhagen? Is the practice of being a Christian or of doing philosophy merely a conventional routine we have adopted? We have assumed with the deceased Oxford philosopher, Derek Parfit, that what we can offer the world is deep philosophical reflection and clarity about ethical normativity in the contemporary world. But what if the ideal itself of a single, coherent moral theory also proves in vain?

Keywords: philosophy; self-consciousness; practical identity; irony

 

Johannes Stoffers, S.I., La fiducia negli esperti

Abstract - A noteworthy phenomenon of the Covid-19-pandemia is the trust that citizens in general and persons with political responsibility have in experts like virologists and doctors. The trust in question has an epistemic aim: everyone wants to know more about the new virus and its effects. After some clarification of the notions of ‘expert’ and ‘trust’, especially in its epistemic dimension, this paper deals, in an epistemological perspective, with the non-expert’s challenge in face of expert reports in order to decide whether an expert is reliable or not. The conditions in which such a decision is possible are discussed. Finally, following these epistemological considerations, a responsibility, shared between experts and non-experts, becomes evident. This responsibility is epistemic, moral, and communicative and favours good cognitive results for the interested persons, i.e. politicians and citizens.

Keywords: expert, epistemic trust, communication, responsibility.

 

Diana Napoli, «Per tutta la mia vita a cosa ho creduto se non alla mia morte»

Abstract - In this contribution, the author intends to show how Michel de Certeau’s analysis of the question of belief, its relationship with institutions and the crisis that opens after the Vatican II and after May 1968 constitute a useful method for investigating the current relationship between citizens and institutions during the current pandemic. In Certeau’s investigation a peculiar role is played by the way in which society relates to death (how it symbolizes it, how it exorcises it, which place it attributes to it), a topic forcefully brought back onto the scene by covid-19. In these conditions death must be considered as a limit that society is obliged to rethink and Certeau provides us with interpretative tools on the subject such as his peculiar vision of Christianity and the «weakness of believing» which he finds consubstantial with the Cristian faith.

Keywords: Certeau, Belief, Institutions, Christianity, Weakness

 

Andrea Cavallini, Non separi l’uomo ciò che Dio ha unito. Complessità ed ecologia integrale

Abstract - Only complex thinking can adequately address complex phenomena. The article presents three examples of philosophical ecology that frame the environmental crisis within a broader human crisis: Bookchin’s Social ecology, Naess’s Deep ecology, and the Integral ecology of the encyclical Laudato si’. Overall, the three proposals focus on four original causes of the ecological crisis: social domination, anthropocentrism, technology and globalisation. On a philosophical level, there is no need to go further: a complex look at the environmental crisis suggests that we should abandon the search for a single cause and a single solution, and instead identify a network of concomitant causes and strategies. For this reason, and especially when it comes to proposing a response to the crisis, the approach of Integral ecology, which brings together many different aspects, is useful.

Keywords: Social ecology, Deep ecology, Integral ecology, anthropocentrism, complexity

Notae – Recensiones – Indicationes – Libri nostri – Opera accepta